CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaregex
genxgeek
genxgeek

Reputation: 13357

Group 1 not matching up per regex

I want the following:

-- Input-- 

keep this

      keep this too
  ------ Remove Below ------
  remove all of this

to become:

-- Output --

keep this

      keep this too

However, I cannot figure out how to match everything up until "------ Remove Below ------" so that I can group things and remove everything but the above expected output.

    String text = "keep this\n       \n"
            + "      keep this too\n  ------ Remove Below ------\n  remove all of this\n";
    Pattern PATTERN = Pattern.compile("^(.*)(-+)(.*)Remove Below(.*)(-+)(.*)$",
            Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
    Matcher m = PATTERN.matcher(text);
    if (m.find()) {
        int count = m.groupCount();
        String g0 = m.group(0);
        String g1 = m.group(1);  // contains "keep this\n    \n    keep this too\n -----"
        String g2 = m.group(2);
        //
        // How can I group correctly to arrive at above expected -- Output --??
        //
    }

Upvotes: 2

Views: 48

Answers (3)

Nishant Lakhara
Nishant Lakhara

Reputation: 2445

"^(.*?)(-+)(.*)Remove Below(.*)(-+)(.*)$"

would also do this.

Upvotes: 1

Ashish
Ashish

Reputation: 39

You can use check the index of "------ Remove Below ------" and then take the substring before that index or Split string into a string array with each line as one array item

String[] split = s.split("\n");

Loop through this array and construct a string until the item matches ------ Remove Below ------

String result="";
        for(int i=0;i<str.length;i++){
            if(!str[i].contains(" Remove Below ")){
                result = result.concat(str[i]);
            }else{
                break;
            }
        }

Upvotes: 0

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 785128

Make your regex non-greedy:

Pattern PATTERN = Pattern.compile("^(.*?)(-+)(.*?)Remove Below(.*?)(-+)(.*)$", 
                                  Pattern.DOTALL);

Also Pattern.MULTILINE isn't needed in your case.

Now m.group(1) will give you:

keep this\n       \n      keep this too\n

Upvotes: 2

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